Where to learn about blockchain development
Blockchains are a popular topic, hot both for developers and for businesses trying to integrate or adapt the technology to their specific needs. At the same time, this technology is fairly new and there are limited options for developers to learn from and get in touch with the blockchain is and how to work with it. While reading the source is an option since most of the currently popular implementations are open source (and still required to get to the low-level details), there are, in fact, documents which can help you learn. This article is a collection of links to tutorials, blogs, technical documentation and tips & tricks for working with the currently most popular aspects of blockchains and products built on top of blockchain.
Cryptography
Cryptography is at the base of blockchain design and much of everything else will not make sense until you are familiar with it. See these resources to start learning how to use it:
- Crypto 101 - An introductory course on cryptography
- Basic cryptology concepts
- How does Bitcoin cryptography work?
General blockchain-related resources
- My blockchain lectures, which span the topics from introduction to blockchains to how Bitcoin and Ethereum work and how to create custom blockchains from them. There are 7 lectures: lecture 1, lecture 2, lecture 3, lecture 4, lecture 5, lecture 6, lecture 7.
- Everything you wanted to know about blockchains but were afraid to ask - a general introduction into low-level concepts of blockchains: hashes, Merkle trees, PoW and Smart contracts.
- Minimum viable blockchain - an introduction to blockchain construction without using PoW.
Bitcoin-related resources
- Bitcoin explained like I'm five - a description of how Bitcoin was constructed, from the way the blockchain is made, to cryptography, to how wallets work.
- Bitcoin developer guide - the official Bitcoin reference to how the whole Bitcoin system works, including the P2P network and mining.
- Tutorial: Build a real-time visualization of Bitcoin transactions with React Native in 10 minutes - a web developer view of creating an application to visualise Bitcoin transaction volume
Ethereum-related resources
- Ethereum builder's guide - an introduction to principles of design and operation which underline Ethereum.
- Full stack hello world voting DAPP tutorial - a tutorial for creating a distributed app from top to bottom.
- Building robust smart contracts with OpenZeppelin - a tutorial for creating smart contracts which use the popular and recommended OpenZeppelin libraries, which increase the security and robustness of the smart contract code.
- Summary of Ethereum Upgradeable Smart Contract R&D - writing Smart contracts which are actually maintainable.
I hope that these resources will help you get into blockchain development and will motivate you to explore and learn more about these fascinating and rapidly changing topics. On the other hand, it is very likely that some of these resources will be outdated eventually, and you should keep an eye on researching new ones.